Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Why Words are The Enemy of Christians


Have you ever noticed that when ever a word in the Bible causes a problem for theists that they take up a full page or more to try and explain away, reinvent new meaning, or otherwise distort that simple word in order to bend it to suit their needs? There must be literally millions of pages of apologetics written by Xtians trying to squirm their way out of the embarrassing and contradictory statements with which the Bible saddles them. In this case, a problem related to the human form and all of its ugly functions.

I once asked a Xtian: "Since Man was made in God's 'image" (Genesis), does this mean God has a penis? And if so, what does he use it for, and on whom?" Not very original, I'll admit, but always fun to watch.

But he surprises me and comes back with this: "Image doesn't mean physical attributes, it means the 'character' of god." He attaches a link to a few thousand word apologetics article that disassociates the word image from appearance. It's clear this Divine Penis problem has been plaguing believers for some time, as they've devoted an awful lot of inventive thought to it.

But, this creative redefinition of common words as a way to escape a problem has its own pitfalls. I.e. In Exodus, when God said "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven IMAGES..." it was clear it meant nothing other than what "images" means: physical likenesses, statues, idols, engravings, etchings, paintings, etc. God could not have meant the "character of graven images" ... images meant images. But you can find apologetics pages that will twist and turn and try escape clauses for that critical (and completely ignored) commandment as well.

It seems that god of theirs just can't quite get his message across clearly enough for people to understand without a lot of helpful redefinition, assumptions, obfuscation, denial and just plain bullshit from his faithful servants. Is this because their god is an inarticulate goofball, or because those ancients who invented god didn't expect people would actually question and analyze their foolish stories? As a Thinking person, I'll opt for the latter.

But, even if the intent of "image" in the Genesis story was "character", while "image" in the Exodus story was "physical attribute", then the problem becomes even more sticky for Christians, even more twisted ... now follow me:
  • If Adam and Eve were created in God's character, and since their character shows them to be disobedient miscreants who sinned, it thus stands to reason that...

  • their creator is also a miscreant sinner or have the capacity to sin.

  • If Adam & Eve had the "character" to do both good and evil, then by definition their creator must have the character to also be good and evil (sin) since they share common characteristics.

So much for the "perfect" God concept; unless by "perfect" they mean God is both perfectly evil AND perfectly good. He certainly can't be perfectly good alone, for how does a perfectly good being create beings in His Character that sin?


Oh what a tangled web they weave when first they practice the apologetics of myth and self deception.

Hump

No comments: